


something feels just a bit off (but not when i'm with you)

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Autistic Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), M/M, Memory Alteration, Navajo Cecil, author is Filled With Nostalgia, cecil is a scientist & carlos is a radio host, some time skipping just to get on with the plot, they're both kinda bad at their job
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2020-07-12 09:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: cecil'salwaysbeen a scientist- he's wanted to be one, ever since he was a child. at least, he thinks. he doesn't remember his childhood, but the hall of public records insists that he's always been a scientist- but hasn't everyone, at one point or another?it's always felt natural, though. at least until a new man drives into town and takes up a job at the old radio station. they meet, they fall in love. cecil sciences and carlos soothes the small town with his calculated, soft voice, and they both agree that something about the whole thing seems off.





	1. Chapter 1

Cecil has been a scientist for _years._ He finished his science degree at Night Vale Community College back, oh… he doesn’t even know how long ago anymore. They’d begged him to stay and teach, because they didn’t have _any_ science professors, science being a rather dangerous occupation in Night Vale. 

Especially if you’re bent on telling other people. Science doesn’t take kindly to other people spilling its secrets, which Cecil understands. He’d turned down the position because he’d made a pinky-promise not to explain anything to anyone else, and Cecil Gershwin Palmer never breaks a promise.

He might _bend_ a promise a bit, sometimes. Sometimes you have to! Cecil’s memories have never been what you might call _infaillible,_ so he records his findings with a tiny tape recorder he stole from the once-defunct radio station. His notes are generally indecipherable, and it doesn’t seem to break the promise [1]. And he enjoys talking into the device, pretending that he has an audience, someone to care about his work. It gives him a strange sense of longing, nostalgia for something that, to the best of his knowledge, never was.

Speaking of the once-defunct radio station. Cecil says ‘once-defunct’, because a new man has come into town, and it’s started up again. Station management has moved back in [2], and the building has a new coat of purple paint. Granted, it’s already been defiled by teenage-angst-fueled graffiti, but it looked nice for those few hours. Cecil hasn’t met the man yet, but he’s heard through the grapevine that his name is Carlos and that he doesn’t like crowds. The man’s first show is tonight, and Cecil thinks that he’ll turn in.

He hasn’t used his radio since the Leonard Burton left the station. He doesn’t care for the silent broadcasts, or Doctor Brandon’s advice sessions. Honestly. What is the man even a doctor of? How did he get a doctorate? NVCC does _not_ have a Ph.D program. The tiny electronic is hidden in the back of a closet, somehow bulky and too thin all at the same time.

“Taking a break from my current experiment to find the radio,” Cecil hums into his recorder, which is nestled into his lab coat pocket. It’s one of his favorite lab coats, tye-dyed in every color you can harvest from a cow. He stands up and leaves the bubbling concoction on the bunsen burner. It’s going to take a while longer to produce results anyway, and the secret police will notify him when it’s almost ready. 

His closet is fuller than he expected, he realizes. A few books tumble out of it when he opens the door [3], and everything else is carefully arranged for maximum storage, considering the area available. Files atop files atop boxes and boxes of cassette tapes, years worth of Cecil’s research. And, at the bottom of it all, Cecil’s radio. 

He sighs. “This may take longer than expected- my experiment is terminated for today.” He reaches over to switch off the bunsen burner. The green liquid suspended above it gurgles unhappily, but Cecil ignores it.

Carlos’ show is just starting when Cecil manages to get the radio working- it was slightly crushed, but what’s a degree in science worth if you can’t fix a radio? The man’s voice is jarring, coming from the speaker on Cecil’s radio. It sounds misplaced.

 _“Ah… hello, Night Vale! I’m Carlos the Radio Host, and I’ve been hired to tell you the news and everything else you need to know about living here.”_ He laughs, sounding like he’s lost somewhere between nervous and awkward. _“I admit, I wasn’t expecting to be a radio host when I came here. I worked the soundboard at my old job, and when I came here and they thrust this position on me, I was planning on turning right back around and leaving. But, uh, I couldn’t find my way back.”_ Maybe not lost between two emotions. Maybe just lost. _“You know, Night Vale is a very strange place. I don’t know if I’m the one who should be telling_ you _how things work around here. I think you all should be telling me.”_ He laughs again, and Cecil is instantly endeared. _“Anyway, that’s my introduction! Feel free to call into the station at [REDACTED] if you have anything you think needs saying. God knows I need the help filling this next half-hour. First on the agenda- the Community Calender. Dark Owl Records is having a one for the price of two sale, and the next city council meeting is on Wednesday…”_

Cecil goes back to puttering with the green concoction as Carlos continues to talk- he doesn’t seem to get less uncomfortable as the show goes on, but he seems resigned to it. Cecil feels bad for him- he knows what it’s like to feel like you’re in a profession you’re simply not fit for [4]. As he listens, he catches himself wishing that it was him in the broadcasting station, him talking, honey-voiced, into the microphone. 

Not that Carlos is exactly honey-voiced. His voice is wonderful, the way a cat’s buzz is wonderful, or a slice of perfect cornbread, or the time right before dawn when it’s just starting to brighten but all the stars are still out, but it’s not honey-like. His words are thought out, and he’s- he’s passionate, Cecil thinks absently, though he’s not sure how he knows. Carlos is certainly not passionate about what he’s saying- if anything, he seems perplexed by the mundane going-ons of his new home town.

Until, twenty-two minutes into the show, Carlos shuffles through papers and brings up the next section: children’s fun fact science corner. Cecil’s favorite recurring segment, after horoscopes and the weather. Carlos’ voice, announcing it, lights up, which pushes the segment up to Cecil’s second favorite [5].

 _“Oh, listeners! I didn’t know science was even a_ thing _in Night Vale, this is…”_ he trails off, sounding flustered. _“I loved science when I was younger. I never got really into it- my parents couldn’t afford a nice microscope for me or anything, and all of my science teachers were… not exactly encouraging. Most of them couldn’t see a fat, brown, obviously queer kid telling them how the world works.”_ Carlos says it almost flippantly, but there's a different emotion underneath it- passion, maybe, or anger. Regret? 

Cecil’s also surprised when he relates to what Carlos is saying. He doesn’t know why he does. There was never anything he wanted to do that he was discouraged from doing. His life has always gone just as it should.

 _“That didn’t stop me at the time, but one day… I was 16, maybe. Junior year. I just woke up wanting to work in media. I got a degree in communications, interned at my local AM radio station, and here we are.”_ He chuckles, and Cecil almost swoons. His computer in the corner [6] flashes mockingly, the windows desktop for a moment, then black. Cecil frowns playfully at it. The computer is incredibly rude, but Cecil just can’t stay mad.

 _“I guess that’s how it is sometimes,”_ Carlos continues absently. _“We think we know what the future holds, where we’ll be going in our lives. We think we know the schedule and then it changes right in front of our eyes. Our calendars only serve to remind us that the world will go on, not to provide any certainty as to what will happen. I think…”_ He trails off. _“Oh, Night Vale, we’re out of time. Tune in next for a fuzzy silence, punctuated by the howls of the possum that Station Management imprisoned in our roof. Thanks for tuning in tonight, and good evening, listeners.”_

Cecil spins on his lab stool and beams to himself. The computer would be rolling its eyes if it had any. “It’s nice to have someone new in Night Vale,” he says to himself [7].

* * *

[1] Cecil knows, because there are severe punishments for breaking a pinky promise in Night Vale, and that’s just with normal people. He doesn’t want to think what would happen if he broke one with the physical manifestation of Science.

[2] Which is terrific, because they were living in the house next to him while the station was out of commission, alternatively moaning about the breakup and unemployment and growling because they didn’t have anyone to terrorize. It resulted in a positively terrible working environment, and Cecil had to do everything at his lab. 

[3] All library books, all _drastically_ overdue, and oh, that must be why the librarians have been leaving threatening letters outside his door. He quickly shoves them into another cabinet.

[4] Except… he doesn’t. Science has always been for him. He’s never not wanted to be a scientist. He’s not sure where the thought came from- perhaps an errant shower thought, drawn by the safety shower and earwash station in the corner. Cecil pushes the thought from his mind.

[5] Still after horoscopes. Cecil chats with the stars sometimes, and it’s so fun to hear what they say in a professional capacity!

[6] Broken and outdated by 1988, per city council’s demands. Also a jerk, just from luck of the draw.

[7] Himself and his secret police agent, of course.


	2. Chapter 2

Carlos is getting coffee at the only coffee shop in town- a Starbucks in Central Night Vale. Carlos thought, with the number of baristas per square mile in Night Vale there’d be an uncropping of cafes, but this is the only one he could find, even after asking around all morning. He’d gone the three weeks he’s been in Night Vale coffee-less, because he’d quit drinking caffine before he left. He’s given up. 

The barista is a girl with a mild frown and a furrowed brow- she looks like she’s from Wyoming, and there’s slowly melting snowflakes in her hair. 

The line stretches out the door, but it’s not like Carlos has anything better to do, so he gets in the queue behind a tall, multi-winged being with an eye on the small of their back. Carlos does his best not to meet the eye, awkwardly looking at the ground and swiping his hair back into a fresh ponytail. All of the many-eyed beings in Night Vale make it too hard to avoid eye contact, which always makes Carlos a bit uncomfortable. The line barely moves a foot in the next ten minutes, but Carlos is committed to this, now. He wants his iced latte, and he’s not going to jump ship. 

His eyes flick up to the winged person’s back. It’s a beautiful eye- pale gray and streaked through with colors Carlos doesn’t have a name for. It blinks at him. “Don’t stare at me, please.” The being says.

“Are- are you an angel?” Carlos asks quickly.

The being turns around. They have three eyes down the middle of their face and no lips- just a slit for a mouth. They’re wearing a kilt and a raty t-shirt with an anarchist symbol on it. “Depends who’s asking,” they say suspiciously. “Are you working for the government?”

“No!” Carlos shoves his hands into his pockets. “No, I’m the new radio host.”

The being relaxes. “Oh, Josie listens to your show. Yeah, I’m an angel. Erika with a K.”

Somewhere in the distance, an alarm goes off. Erika looks embarrassed. “That happens whenever someone mentions it, though. The City Council won’t care what I do, because they’re a bit scared of me,” Erika confides, “but you should go around blabbing about it. We could both get in some trouble.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Carlos verifies. Erika winks at him at turns back around. 

The line moves another half-inch [1] before someone gets in line behind Carlos.

Whoever it is gasps, their breath cold against Carlos’ neck. He turns around, frowning. “Is everything okay?”

The man behind Carlos is taller than him by quite a few inches [2] and looks starstruck. He’s also beautiful [3], with long dark hair and red-brown skin only a few shades lighter than the sand surrounding Night Vale. He’s wearing a light pink lab coat over patterned leggings and a t-shirt dress, and there’s a turquoise set in silver hanging around his neck.

“I- yes, everything’s just neat,” The man says, and blushes. “I like your shirt,” he says.

Carlos looks down at what he’s wearing- he feels somehow underdressed next to the other man, even though his outfit is reasonable, by anyone’s standards. He’s wearing his headphones around his neck and a shirt with tiny embroidered foxes on it. He likes it too. “Thank you,” he says. 

The man sticks out a hand- he’s wearing long stick on nails in the same shade of purple that the station is painted in. “I’m Cecil!” He says cheerfully. Carlos shakes his hand. Cecil’s handshake is weak, but enthusiastic, like what Carlos imagines a golden retriever’s handshake would be like. His eye contact is unerring, like what Carlos imagines God must be like. Carlos averts his eyes. “I’m one of the scientists around here,” Cecil says.

Carlos brightens and flaps his hands. “You are! I’ve been _dying_ to meet a scientist here. I wasn’t sure how you’d do science, judging by how it seems like… well, everything is so not-measurable.”

Cecil beams at him. “I’ve been dying to meet you, too. I love your show. And it’s a struggle, really, but I manage.”

“Have you investigated the house down in Desert Creek? I haven’t heard much about it, but it seems fascinating. I was wondering how it would respond to tests- Night Vale is such a fascinating community.”

Cecil shifts. “Well, no, I mostly examine bubbling beakers of liquid, take samples of plants, you know, things like that.”

“Of course, of course,” Carlos agrees. “What do you think of those flowers at the park? I think they’re perfectly odd-”

“I’ve been listening to your show!” Cecil cheerfully cuts in. Carlos winces at the interruption. “I’m sorry,” Cecil apologizes, looking sheepish. “I just don’t enjoy talking about my job very much. Being a scientist in Night Vale is a commitment, and I’ve been thinking about it recently… I fear…” he trails off, and waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Tell me about your job? You’re going to the station after your coffee, right?”

Carlos nods mutely.

Cecil’s voice gets softer, more confidential, and Carlos unconsciously leans closer to him. “If I can ask, why aren’t you wearing the uniform? The corduroy shirt, the khakis…”

“How do you know the uniform?” Carlos doesn’t wear it because he hates corduroy and Station Management has yet to reprimand him.

Cecil blinks at him. “I couldn’t say,” he says, and Carlos doesn’t know if that means he doesn’t know, or if the information is confidential, like so much in Night Vale. “Tell me more about the station?”

“Well,” Carlos starts, “I was pretty panicked when I found that the job that I thought I’d applied for wasn’t _actually_ the job I’d applied for, but that’s how things go sometimes, you know.” He waves his hands as he talks, and the pair slowly moves forward in the line.

Once Carlos has his coffee in hand [4] he does his best to escape the cafe. There are far too many people inside, and Carlos hasn’t had to worry about overstimulation for weeks, so it’s more jarring than usual. Cecil follows him out, and they stand together outside the starbucks doors for a moment, sipping at their respective drinks.

“I ought to be going,” Cecil says apologetically, and rests a hand on Carlos’ forearm. Carlos’ arm prickles at the touch, but he does his best to ignore it. A radio personality has to be, well, personable. “But tell me if you ever need to talk. I know that Night Vale can be, well, a lot for interlopers.”

Carlos smiles at him and brushes Cecil’s arm away. “Thanks, I appreciate it. But, you know, the first thing a radio host is is self-reliant.” He doesn’t know where the words come from- he’d love the help, and Cecil seems… nice. It’d be good to have an ally in town.

Cecil smiles back- not his wide grin from before, but a quiet, knowing smile. “Well, yes, but you haven’t been a radio host long, have you.”

Touché.

* * *

[1] Maybe because the barista is the only one in the coffee shop- Carlos feels terrible for her.

[2] Not that that’s _unusual._ Most men have at least three on Carlos.

[3] Carlos doesn’t usually note if he’s attracted to someone, because attraction is far too confusing for him to deal with, but beautiful is… the only way he can think to describe him.

[4] The ice to coffee to milk ratio is slightly off, but the barista looked about five minutes to a panic attack, so Carlos had tipped 75% and told himself not to worry about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha! another chapter out today!!! the next chapter i'm hoping to have out... in the next two days, i think. this'll be good.
> 
> comments and kudos absolutely make my day


	3. Chapter 3

They become closer- close enough that Cecil invites Carlos to his lab and explains, as vaguely as he can, what his current experiments are about.[1] Close enough that Carlos sometimes mentions Cecil on his show- hesitantly, because he never talks about his life in Night Vale, only about Before, as Cecil likes to call his life before he moved. Close enough to get dinner together, and to awkwardly not-kiss at the end, and then to get dinner later, and to kiss chastely, and then to get dinner even later and kiss less-chastely.

Cecil likes hearing Carlos talk about him. He likes hearing his name on the radio. He likes the idea of being on the radio a lot, really. He dreams about it sometimes- something like a memory, buried in his subconscious. Him in his teeth leggings, sitting in the recording booth and talking into a microphone, an intern at the soundboard.[2] Coming home to someone he loves, someone maybe like Carlos, but… not Carlos. A different man, taller and louder. But sometimes it’s a woman, snider and more smiling than Carlos. Sometimes it’s yet a different man, paler and shiftier. He always wakes from those dreams sweating, somewhere between glad they’re over and wishing they’d come back.

He practices into his recorder when there’s no one listening but him and his secret police agent. _“Goodnight, Night Vale,”_ he says before he goes home at night, _“Goodnight,”_ and his agent sneers from the bushes. 

He brings his radio home with him tonight, because he’s turning in early- he’s been doing that a lot recently, skimping out on his experiments. He doesn’t find them as riveting as he used to. He’s not really sure if he actually ever liked them. 

Carlos’ bit starts as soon as he gets home, so he flips on the receiver and melts into his couch. Even after a few weeks of broadcasting, Carlos never sounds as at home on air as he does at Cecil’s lab.[3] He goes over the routine segments- traffic, community calendar, the weather. When he comes back on after a prerecorded commercial for Taco Bell, he sounds melancholy.[4]

_“And, in other news-”_ he stops, sighs deeply, and too close to the mic. A quiet squeal of feedback slips past the intern at the soundbooth, and Carlos sighs again. _“I’m sorry, Night Vale. Today has just been a little strange. I was talking to Cecil- you know Cecil, Cecil Palmer? The scientist with the honeyed voice who works out by Big Ricos?”_

Cecil feels his face warm. His TV snickers and Cecil makes a silent reminder to get rid of his sentient electronics. They’re just jerks.

 _“I was talking with him today, about the experiments he’s doing on the PH of the soil here, and…”_ Carlos sighs. _“Do you ever feel like you made the wrong choice. Not even that you made it, really, just like one day someone flicked a switch and changed you.”_

 _“I was never concerned about my profession before I met him.”_ Cecil says with Carlos, under his breath, then startles, as well as he can while laying on his side, half absorbed by his couch. 

“Like a switch,” he repeats to himself. He tugs at a stray thread poking out of his armchair and bites his lip.

 _“But that’s how love works, I suppose,”_ Carlos says on the radio. _“They make you realize how you can be better. The mistakes you made. I only wonder if it’s too late for me...”_

 _“Love,”_ Cecil echoes, whispered. 

_“Night Vale, I lied to you when I first came here.”_ There’s a creak of someone shifting in an old chair, and Carlos continues. _“I said that I woke up one day uninterested in science. That’s a lie. I had a dream that night. A multiheaded, multi-legged, multi-bodied creature came to me and, well… threatened me, you could say. I’ve never told anyone, because it always seems idiotic to change your life path over something as silly as a dream, but being here in Night Vale, well. I think that maybe...”_

Carlos’s voice fades out, or maybe the constant static at the back of Cecil’s mind gets louder. Cecil has a headache, but he feels on the edge of an epiphany. That’s what scientists do, they have epiphanies.

Er. This isn’t an epiphany, though, is it. It’s a memory, half-surfaced. One of his dreams, but he’s not in it.

_A huge creature (Station Management, some part of his mind supplies, though he’s never met it) is in a darkened room, roiling and curling in and around itself. “Something needs to be done,” it insists. The door is opened just a crack, and Cecil knows with certainty than whatever is on the other side is just as fearful as Station Management._

_So, the City Council. Obviously._

_“He’s the voice of Night Vale,” the City Council says, their voices echoing like thousands of crickets chirping in a concert hall. “He’ll know. He knows everything-”_

_“We can’t watch him hurt again. Scientists think they know everything, they get injured, trapped, they die. It’s a dangerous occupation, and We can’t watch him grieve for another person.” Station Management is unhappy, Cecil can tell from the way their fangs twitch and their many, many eyes flutter closed._

_“What if_ he _dies, as a scientist?” The City Council laughs bitterly, a noise like sandpaper on marble. “What would you do then, my dears? He can survive another heartbreak, but can he survive what comes with being a scientist?”_

_Station Management snarls. “He won’t. Night Vale likes him. We can keep the scientist safe if he is no longer a scientist, if he stay with Us, at the radio station.”_

_City Council turns away from the door and shuts it. “Very well. I’ll talk to Carlos.”_

_Station Management doesn’t say thank you, but Cecil feels gratitude emanate from it. It’s a sticky feeling, warm and sweet, but it fills Cecil with dread. **[5]**_

“Holy shit,” Cecil says, and rubs at his temples. His headache slowly fades, replaced by centuries and centuries of memories he hadn’t known he had. Small gaps in his eternal memories- years he had brushed away as simply an age-old mind filled to the brink- come back to him. Hours and hours in the recording booth, years spent leaning flirtatiously against anatomical models, exchanging kisses over bunsen burners, decades of being the Voice of Night Vale. “I need to… I need to talk to Carlos.”

The station isn’t far from Cecil’s house, which he’s a bit surprised to find. He’s never bothered to look for it. He wonders if that was the City Council’s doing, or if it was Station Management, or just him. Just his unobservant nature, but Cecil has never been _that_ unobservant. Well, he wasn’t before he became a scientist. He pulls open the double doors and snorts to himself. He was never even a very good scientist. Night Vale was his home and everything about it was mundane to him. Any good scientist needs to have a sense of wonder about what they’re researching, and Night Vale fills him with hope and love, with community, but never anything so incredulous as wonder.

He waves an absent hand at Peter and remembers countless others in the recording booth- Pepper with the extra ear, Mary and her infant daughter, Ezra who always wore sweater vests. Carlos is in the break room, cross legged on the floor since all their chairs had been stolen. He’s paging through a fat volume of some book Cecil’s never seen, but he looks up when he hears the other man walk in. “Cecil!” He whispers, his voice a wheeze. Cecil feels his brows draw together in concern and he folds himself down to sit next to his boyfriend.

“Are you okay? Your voice sounds terrible!”

“Oh, yeah.” Carlos sneezes into his elbow and his cheeks darken. “There’s a cat in the men’s bathroom… he’s kinda…” Carlos gestures vaguely. “floating… I wish I could figure out why, but I don’t have a permit for science from the City Council.” His vague gestures turn into more excited hand movements, and he widens his eyes. “I found out today you need a permit to do science in Night Vale, and I was thinking about it, and you-”

“I don’t have one,” Cecil agrees. He looks expectantly at Carlos, who holds up the book he’s reading. “And I was looking through the records from the station, it lists every show that’s ever aired, and look.” He points at an entry for 1992, back when Cecil would have been… oh, he doesn’t know. Early 40s? Of course, he’s still in his early 40s, just like Carlos. Cecil blinks at squints at the text. _Welcome to Night Vale, twenty two minutes. Cecil Palmer._ And the next one: _Welcome to Night Vale, nineteen minutes. Cecil Palmer,_ it says in a handwriting that is distinctly his. Cecil doesn’t know what to say, but it doesn’t seem to really matter. Carlos sneezes again and hops up, grabbing Cecil’s hand and starting to lead him up a hallway that Cecil knows leads to Station Management. “And Peter and I were starting to clean the closets in the station after we opened one that was starting to smell and found countless bags of blood and in one I found all these milk crates of cassettes. Some smoked when I touched them, so I left them. A lot were labeled Leonard Burton-” Cecil remembers Leonard- “But I found like, three milk boxes of your radio show, I think. It’s the same as mine,” Carlos says. “I listened to a… lot of them, actually.”

Carlos stops in front of an unlabeled door and throws it open. Inside are, indeed, crates and crates of cassettes and cassettes. Cecil remembers collecting them from his interns after shows in the late 80s, carefully writing his name and the date on them, and then dumping them into the leftover crates from Station Management’s daily blood milk delivery.

“Yes, I-” Cecil starts hesitantly.

“What does it mean, Cecil? What was the monster in my dream? Why am I here and not you?” Carlos looks up at Cecil, looking confused, worried, and maybe a little angry. Mostly, though, he looks curious, excited to know something he doesn’t yet. It's an expression that fits perfectly on his face. Cecil feels some of his internal organs squirm happily just looking at him.

Cecil’s tattoos hiss and slither up his neck, and Cecil says, “I don’t completely know myself, really, but we should find out. I realized- well, I can’t be the reason you can’t do what you love.”

* * *

[1] Carlos always seems thrilled by the sparkling beakers and the powders. He asks questions that Cecil doesn’t know the answers to.

[2] The station has had the same intern since it reopened- a boy named Peter. He always waves to Cecil when he comes into the station, and Cecil always waves back. Somehow it’s always a little surprising to see him again. 

[3] Cecil wants to say it’s because he’s with the other man, but something tells him that’s not all of it.

[4] His voice is beautiful even in its melancholy, but Cecil’s heart hurts to hear his beautiful sc-radio announcer unhappy.

[5] In these ways, it’s very similar to bananas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -bet u thought i abandoned this fic!!! and that's because i did. i completely forgot it existed but i had half this chapter finished so i just came back to it, cleaned it up a little, and added the rest! we're definitly getting toward the climax here and i'm pretty excited!  
> -i LOVE these men. sometimes i think about them and tear up. they were just such a big part of me becoming who i am and wtnv rly helped me get through like... middle school itself and also just in general they are SUCH good representation and also relationship goals. i want what they have..  
> -and of course! comments and kudos make me the happiest person ever :) and if you ever have any thoughts abt wtnv or cecil or carlos or anything else come shoot me an ask [@yearning-hours](https://yearning-hours.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


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